


how to say 'i love you' without saying a word

by speckygit



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: 'my child is fine' ur childs favourite trope is found family., Alternate Universe - Foster Family, Other, Sleepy Bois Inc Fluff, i wrote this bc im sap for showing love in ways that dont require u to say 'i love you', the kitchen table whilst doing maths homework, this isnt about the real people cuz im not a fuckin weirdo, tommy is representation for everyone who has cried at, whilst their dad tries to explain how to do it, wilbur is a cartography nerd who collects terrible maps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 11:35:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30038100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speckygit/pseuds/speckygit
Summary: “Hey, hey,” Phil says softly, and Tommy looks up at him with watery eyes. Phil runs a hand through the younger boy’s curls. “Wanna come to Tesco with me?”Tommy blinks.[or: the different ways the sleepy bois show that they love each other]
Relationships: TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & Technoblade, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Comments: 12
Kudos: 291





	how to say 'i love you' without saying a word

**Author's Note:**

> listen. im not the type to say 'i love you' to ppl out loud. if i tolerate ur presence i buy u food and/or milkshakes or ask if u wanna come grocery shopping w me and hope that u understand that that means i like u a bit. so i forced that dynamic onto the sleepy bois. enjoy.

  1. **strawberry milkshake**



_“I’M BACK IN LIVERPOOL AND EVERYTHING SEEMS THE SAME -”_ Niki’s phone was plugged into the car speaker, with Wilbur sat in the driver’s seat whilst Tommy and Tubbo sat together in the back. The four of them sang (or yelled, in the boy’s case) along to the music and Wilbur thought his face was going to split in half from how much he was grinning. It was a rare warm-ish day in England, the usual grey replaced with bright sun, so all the windows had been rolled down (the AC in the scratched-up, dirty Fiesta that Wilbur and Techno shared has been long broken, so on warm days the only choice was to open the windows and deal with the bugs) and the music was so loud that Wilbur could feel it in his seat.

Wilbur was interrupted from his singing by someone in the back slapping his arm. Niki turned down the music as Tommy leaned further forward, laughing as Wilbur pushed him away without looking.

“Wilbur, _Tubbo_ is hungry,” Wilbur hears Tubbo’s outraged gasp from the other seat. “Can we get McDonald’s?”

Wilbur sighs long-sufferingly, but one look at Niki’s face and he knows he’s not fooling anyone with his fake annoyance.

“ _Fine,”_ he says, drawing out the word, and the two boys behind him cheer. He tries to keep a straight face, but he can hear Niki giggling beside him and he can’t help but smile.

It’s not difficult to divert his trip from home to the nearest McDonald’s, and it isn’t long until he’s swinging the car into the drive-thru. Wilbur shuts his eyes and thumps his head onto the steering wheel as Tommy and Tubbo yell unintelligible orders into the speaker. Niki places her own order in a much calmer fashion, and then Wilbur asks for what he wants.

“Anything else for you today?” the static-y voice asks.

“No thank- oh! Wait, yeah, a strawberry milkshake please,” he says, and mouths ‘for Techno’ at Niki’s questioning glance.

They collect their food, Wilbur passing it to Niki so she can fish their stuff out before she gives the rest to Tommy and Tubbo for them to fight over. Niki basks in the privilege of being The Passenger Holding The McDonalds Bag, and helps herself to plenty of the stray fries that sit in the bottom of the bag. Occasionally Wilbur will say ‘nugget me, Niki’ and she’ll dunk a chicken nugget in some ketchup and hold it in front of Wilbur’s face so he can eat without taking his hands of the wheel.

It’s not a perfect system, but it works, and it makes Tommy and Tubbo pull faces and say things like “urgh, _stop”_ and “this is deffo flirting” which Niki finds pretty funny.

Wilbur pulls up outside her house and she grabs her leftover food and says goodbye before jumping out the car and running inside. Wilbur waves at her and Tommy and Tubbo shout out the window at her, causing the lot of them to get some funny looks from an old lady walking her dog along the street. Wilbur can see Niki’s shoulders shake with laughter as she waves back at them, and waits for her to unlock the door and get safely inside before driving off.

“You coming back to ours, Tubbo?” he asks, and he looks in the rearview mirror only to be met with two teenage gremlins staring at him like he’s an idiot.

“ _Duh,”_ Tommy says, and Tubbo nods. Wilbur rolls his eyes as the two boys resume whatever inane conversation they were having before.

They eventually get home and roll onto the drive; Wilbur has barely stopped the car when Tommy and Tubbo are undoing their seatbelts and throwing themselves out the car, yelling a ‘ _thanks for the food, Wilbur!’_ before disappearing into the house with their leftover McDonalds. Wilbur rolls his eyes fondly as he switches off the engine and follows them into the house, entering just in time to hear the two of them run into Tommy’s room and slam the door shut.

“ _Stop slamming doors!”_ Wilbur hears Phil’s voice echo from elsewhere in the house, but there’s only humour in his reprimand. Tommy and Tubbo yell out muffled apologies, and Wilbur can hear Phil’s chuckle through the walls.

Wilbur toes off his knackered Converse and kicks them onto the growing, haphazard pile next to the front door before calling out a greeting to Phil and heading upstairs. When he passes the closed door of Tommy’s room he hears the familiar sounds of Mario Kart combined with Tommy and Tubbo’s friendly insults and laughter. From behind Techno’s closed door he hears nothing, but he knocks loudly on the door repeatedly until Techno throws the door open with a glare.

“ _What.”_ Techno’s tone is harsh, but Wilbur just grins.

“For you!” Wilbur says, pressing the strawberry milkshake into Techno’s hands, before pushing past his brother and throwing himself onto Techno’s bed. Techno blinks, before turning to face Wilbur.

“You got me a milkshake?” he asks, looking down at the drink that was currently dripping condensation onto his socked feet. His eyebrows furrow and he jerks his head up to glare at Wilbur. “Hey, wait, get out my room!”

Wilbur laughs, making no move to get out of Techno’s room, and instead leans across the bed to grab a book from the bedside table. He flicks through the pages, eyes skimming over the notes that Techno has clearly scribbled in the margins.

Techno places his milkshake on his desk (on a _coaster,_ he’s not a monster) before throwing a pillow at Wilbur.

“ _Hey!”_ Wilbur yelps, dropping the book he was holding. “What was that for?”

Techno stares.

“Get out of my room.” Techno’s voice is completely monotone, but he’s holding another pillow that Wilbur would rather not be attacked with. “I have an essay to write.”

Wilbur holds his hands up in surrender and drags himself off the bed and stumbles towards the door. Techno makes his way back over to his desk and slumps into his chair, turning his attention back towards his computer screen. Wilbur is out the door and almost down the hall when he hears Techno call his name.

“Wilbur?”

“Yeah?”

“Uh – thanks. For the milkshake.”

“No worries, Tech!” Wilbur grins as he hears Techno mumble in response, and the smile doesn’t quite fade as he hurtles down the stairs to go annoy Phil instead.

  1. **supermarket trip**



Tommy has been staring at the worksheet in front of him for the past twenty minutes but was still no closer to understanding just what in the absolute fuck he was supposed to be doing than he was when he started. The numbers and letters on the page may as well have been hieroglyphics for all he understood them - the equations and formulas hurt his brain. His teacher had explained how to work these sorts of problems out, but sometimes Tommy found it _really_ tricky to pay attention in class, forgetting what the teacher had said moments after them saying it, so now Tommy was stuck at the dining table with a page of maths problems that were complete gibberish to him.

He glares harder at his homework, hoping to intimidate it into becoming understandable, and barely notices when Phil enters the room, looking for his keys and wallet.

“You alright, mate?” Phil asks, ruffling Tommy’s hair fondly and glancing down at the worksheet in front of his son. “Urgh, maths. Gross.”

He grabs his keys from the side and hums sympathetically as Tommy groans.

“I just – I don’t _get it,”_ Tommy whines, clearly frustrated. “I don’t think it’s even that hard, but I zoned out in the lesson and missed the explanation and now _none of it makes any sense!”_

Tommy’s voice cracks on the last word, and Phil looks over at the boy to see that Tommy is grabbing at his hair tightly as he attempts to stare a hole through the table. Phil walks over to him, gently touching Tommy’s hands to get him to release the grip he had on his hair.

“Hey, _hey,”_ he says softly, and Tommy looks up at him with watery eyes. Phil runs a hand through the younger boy’s curls. “Wanna come to Tesco with me?”

Tommy blinks.

“Huh?” he says, and Phil smiles.

“I’m going to need help with all the bags, and you’re better at picking out snacks that you and the others will like.”

Tommy takes a breath and nods.

“Okay,” he says, a small smile making its way onto his face. “But only ‘cause I know an old man like you needs my huge fuckin’ muscles to do all the heavy lifting.”

Phil’s laughter makes Tommy grin, and when Phil tells him to _go get your shoes on, you little shit,_ that grin just turns into laughter, maths homework temporarily forgotten.

\-----

They stroll through the aisles of the store, with Tommy pushing the trolley and Phil periodically calling out items from his list. Phil lets Tommy choose some crisps to throw into the trolley, and when he has to ask the teen to reach something from the top shelf he just grins at the inevitable teasing. Tommy, meanwhile, lets himself get caught up in the distraction of being somewhat useful – he skirts round the corners of the aisles with the trolley, throwing things in when Phil mentions needing something, he leaves the trolley with Phil when they need something on the other side of the store and runs off to search for it, he reminds Phil that they need to get more vegetarian nuggets for Techno. The tasks are simple but keep him productive, and although he would never admit it, he actually quite enjoys shopping. He likes walking around and just chatting with Phil – with two older brothers, it can be difficult to get some time alone with Phil. Don’t get him wrong - he loves his family and wouldn’t change it for the world, but sometimes it’s nice to have some time where it’s just him and his dad, without the constant snarky remarks from Wilbur and Techno.

It isn’t until the two of them are heaving the shopping bags into the boot of Phil’s car, that Phil brings up the topic of Tommy’s dreaded maths homework.

“If you want, I’ll speak to Wilbur when we get back and see if he can help you with it in any way,” Phil suggests. “You know I’m shite at maths – he’s gonna be your best bet.”

Tommy frowns down at the bag he’s holding and mumbles something unintelligible.

“What was that, Toms?”

“He’s just gonna make fun of me,” Tommy repeats, refusing to meet Phil’s eyes. Phil takes the bag from Tommy’s hands.

“He’s not,” Phil says, making Tommy look up at him with disdain. “He’s _not,_ ” Phil repeats, firm, and goes on. “Not if he knows that it’s genuinely upsetting you.”

Phil pushes the boot shut and Tommy sighs as he takes the trolley back to the trolley shelter. Phil gets in the car, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. Tommy returns; he goes to pass the pound coin from the trolley back to his dad but Phil waves him off, letting Tommy keep it.

Tommy grins as he pockets the coin and pulls on his seatbelt.

“Could you – could you maybe talk to Wilbur?” he asks once they’ve set off, and Phil smiles.

“Course I can, mate.” Tommy sighs in relief, playing with the zip on his hoodie. “He won’t make fun of you – he’s helped Techno with plenty of maths homework over the years. He knows it’s stressful.”

“Really?” Tommy asks, sounding much smaller than Phil was used to, and Phil smiled softly at his youngest.

“Really,” he says, and at Phil’s confirmation he seemed to relax, the tension in the car evaporating almost instantaneously.

They return home and Phil goes to get out of the car but Tommy looks like he wants to say something, so he lingers, prolonging his movements until the teen finds his voice.

“Hey, uh, thanks. For making me come with you.”

Phil smiles.

“Anytime,” he says, and Tommy knows that he means it.

  1. **map theft**



There was a poster in Techno’s college that he couldn’t stop thinking about.

It wasn’t anything out the ordinary, and most people just walked by it without paying any attention to it, but Techno couldn’t get it off his mind.

The poster is a map of the world, but instead of garish blues and greens the poster is made to look like a vintage-style map, with ships drawn in the oceans and little faces blowing gusts of air to symbolise the wind. The poster is stapled to a display board in corridor between Techno’s literature classroom and the toilets he always avoids because the sinks never work, and because of its place in a busy corridor the corners of the poster are scuffed and torn from stray backpacks and bored students picking at it.

It’s a bit of a shitty poster, if he’s honest.

Yet he can’t stop thinking about it.

In class, he zones out – usually, he would add to the class discussion (his passion for literature tends to override his social anxiety when the class talks about the reading) but today all his mind can think about is the shitty map on the wall down the hall.

Class finally ends, and somewhere at the back of his mind he makes a mental note to go over today’s topics again when he gets the chance. For now, though, he leaves the classroom and lingers outside, waiting for his classmates to all leave and scrolling through his phone to look less suspicious. A quick glance into the classroom shows that it’s empty, except the teacher who is sat typing away at her laptop. It looks like she won’t leave for a while.

Perfect.

Techno tucks his phone back into his pocket and walks up to the display board. He waits for the last few remaining students to walk away, before gently tearing the poster from the wall. He pulls the staples out of the corners of the poster and tucks them in his pocket to throw away later, rolls the poster up carefully. He strolls away, leaving an empty rectangle on the display board behind him.

When he gets home, Tommy and Wilbur are in the living room doing a Buzzfeed quiz. Or rather, Wilbur is reading out questions for Tommy to answer whilst Tommy sits upside down on the couch.

“Cookies, cupcakes, brownies, or none?” Wilbur asks, and Tommy hums.

“Brownies? Wait, no, cookies.”

Wilbur taps his phone and asks Tommy the next question. Techno stands awkwardly in the doorway, the poster suddenly feeling very heavy in his hand. Maybe he should just go now, before they notice him, and then he can throw the poster away and he won’t have to embarrass himself and it will all be _fine –_

“Oh, hi Techno!” Tommy calls out, finally noticing his brother lingering in the doorway. Wilbur turns to look and grins at him, before turning back to Tommy.

“Sliders, fries, kale chips, or fried pickles?” He asks, and Tommy grimaces.

“What kind of person is choosing _kale chips?_ ” Tommy swings himself up so that he’s sat upright on the sofa again, and Wilbur shrugs. Techno’s curiosity finally gets the better of him, and he enters the room properly.

“What are you guys _doing?_ ”

“Buzzfeed quiz. Except Tommy doesn’t know what the title of the quiz is, he just knows that by choosing food he is answering some fundamental truth about himself,” Wilbur says solemnly, and Tommy rolls his eyes.

“I bet it’s just gonna be like, “we can tell your star sign by what you eat!” or some shit like that,” Tommy pulls his legs up onto the sofa, throwing them over Wilbur’s lap. Wilbur immediately shoves them off.

“You still haven’t answered.”

Tommy gives a weary, long-suffering sigh.

“Fries, _duh,_ ” he says, and Wilbur nods as he taps at his screen.

“Well, this is awkward,” Wilbur raises his eyebrows at his phone. “According to the results, your dad’s name begins with F, M, or S.”

“ _What?”_ Tommy snatches the phone, glaring at the screen as Techno and Wilbur laugh at him. “No, it’s wrong. It’s wrong.”

“Buzzfeed is never wrong, Tommy,” Techno says ominously, and Wilbur nods. Tommy turns his glare from Wilbur’s phone to his brothers instead.

He’s about to say something incredibly funny and clever about the results of Buzzfeed quizzes being stupid anyway, when he notices something in Techno’s hand.

“Wait, what’s that?” Tommy nods at the rolled-up paper that Techno is still clutching, and Wilbur turns his attention to it as well.

Shit.

Techno’s hands suddenly become very clammy and his throat feels a bit dry. He looks down at the poster in his hand, then back up at Tommy.

“What’s what?” he says, very smartly, and Tommy narrows his eyes at him.

“ _That,”_ the younger teen gestures towards the poster. “What is it?”

Techno looks at the poster again. Maybe if he just keeps staring at the floor this situation will end.

“Techno?” Wilbur’s voice is soft, and Techno remembers to breathe. “You okay?”

Techno takes a deep breath. He’s come all this way; he might as well see it through. He thrusts the poster into Wilbur’s chest before he can lose his nerve. He avoids Wilbur’s eyes, missing the look of complete confusion on his brother’s face.

“ _Foryourwall,”_ Techno mumbles, before racing out the room and disappearing upstairs into his bedroom.

Wilbur and Tommy watch as Techno disappears from the room, both of them trying to process what just happened. Wilbur still had the poster clutched to his chest.

“Unroll it, then,” Tommy tugs at Wilbur’s hand. Wilbur slaps him away but unrolls it anyway. As soon as he realises what it is, he grins.

“Oh. For your _wall,_ ” Tommy nods in understanding. “I thought he said, ‘for you all’. This makes a lot more sense.”

Wilbur ignores Tommy’s rambling and rolls the poster back up before heading upstairs. He heads to his bedroom, already picturing in his mind where he’s going to put this particular print. He’s running out of space – his walls are covered in various maps of different places (both real and fictional), maps of rivers, maps of trainlines, bad maps, good maps, all sorts of maps. His goal is to cover the walls completely, and then potentially cover the ceiling too. He looks round his room and finds a space near his desk, next to a drawing of him and his brothers that Niki had given him for his birthday one year. He tacks the poster on the wall before stepping back.

He assesses the poster. The edges are tattered, so Wilbur assumes that Techno tore this down from some wall somewhere. The thought of that makes him smile to himself, and he’s still smiling like an idiot at his wall when Techno walks by.

“You, uh, you like it, then?” Wilbur is shaken from his thoughts by the sound of Techno’s voice.

“It’s great! I’ve been searching for _ages_ for more old-timey maps like this,” he gestures towards the man blowing the wind in the poster’s corner. Techno nods.

“That’s…good.”

Wilbur tears his gaze away from studying the map (there’s a misprint on it, which is _awesome,_ and the intricate border is just _amazing_ ) to look at his brother. Techno is leaning on the doorframe, picking at a loose thread on his hoodie.

“Thank you for stealing this from some classroom for me, Techno,” Wilbur says, hoping that his voice doesn’t betray how in that moment he’s feeling a painful amount of gratitude for the teenager awkwardly standing in front of him.

Techno stares at the ground, mumbling something that sounds sort of like ‘you’re welcome’, before shuffling away to the safety of his own room.

Wilbur listens to his brother disappear down the hall, smiling fondly, before turning back to his new map.

“ _Wicked,”_ he whispers under his breath as he investigates it further, tracing a finger over the detailed illustrations.

  1. **eggs? eggs.**



Phil was exhausted. He didn’t mind his job but today dragged on and on, and then he had to stay longer than usual for a meeting when all he wanted to do was go home and laze around with his boys.

He was home now, though, and he gives a sigh of relief as he enters the house. Tiredness seeps through his bones but he hears Techno and Wilbur talking in the kitchen, hears Tommy yell at some videogame in the living room, and can’t help but smile.

He heads to the kitchen first. Techno is sat at the dining table, homework spread out but going largely ignored as he laughs at something Wilbur has said, who is sat on the kitchen counter eating dry cereal straight out of the box. The two boys look up as Phil walks in, and Phil smiles at the twin-grins he’s met with.

“Alright, lads?” he asks, and Techno shakes his head.

“ _No,_ ” Techno says, exasperated, and Phil raises his eyebrows. “I’m trying to do my homework but this _asshole,_ ” he gestures towards Wilbur, “keeps distracting me.”

“I’m not distracting you! I’m _helping_ you,” Wilbur offers the cereal box out to Phil, who shakes his head, bemused.

“Throwing cereal at me every time I spend more than five minutes on a question is _not helping!”_

Phil can’t help but laugh at the exasperated expression on Techno’s face and the unrepentant grin on Wilbur’s. He ruffles Techno’s pink hair (grinning at the grumbles he gets in response) and leaves the two of them to bicker with one another as he heads to the living room.

He enters the room, and Tommy gives him a quick wave before turning his attention back to the TV screen. From the sounds of his yelling, Phil thought he would be in some sort of intense boss fight, but when he looks at the screen he sees that Tommy’s actually playing… Animal Crossing?

Phil loves his sons. Truly. But he doesn’t think he’ll ever truly understand them.

“You alright? I heard yelling when I came in.”

Tommy makes a noise that’s somewhere between a grunt and hum.

“Tom Nook is a dickhead,” he says simply, as if that explains everything, and Phil hums as if he understands.

He takes a seat on the couch next to Tommy - his youngest son has clearly been to the corner shop on the way home from school because there’s an empty Red Bull can and sweet packets piled up on the coffee table – and watches as the little Animal Crossing Tommy on the screen runs around talking to villagers. The tension Phil’s been holding begins to fade away as he lets the sounds of Tommy mumbling to himself become background noise, smiling as the teen greets some of the characters out loud (he doesn’t seem to realise he’s doing it, but Phil finds it hopelessly endearing to hear Tommy say _good morning, Mable!_ or _tell me more, Blathers_ quietly to himself, so he’s made Wilbur and Techno promise not to point it out or make fun of the youngest for it).

Tommy is in the middle of chopping down trees with reckless abandon when he suddenly stops with an “oh!”. He drops the controllers into his lap and starts rummaging through the wrappers in front of him, making Phil look up.

“I almost forgot – here!” He drops one of the wrappers into Phil’s lap and takes up the controllers again. “I saved you the eggs.”

Phil picks up the wrapper, his forehead furrowed in confusion. He thought it was an empty Haribo packet, but upon closer inspection he finds that – yep, Tommy has saved him the eggs.

His favourite.

“…Cheers, mate,” he says, feeling slightly emotional.

Is that normal? To get emotional over Haribo eggs?

Phil doesn’t really care.

Tommy grins at him, before turning back to frown at the TV.

“Fucking – Tom Nook, you _bitch,”_ he cries, and Phil can’t help but to laugh and pull him in for a sidehug.

**Author's Note:**

> if u need any british translations like i gave at the end of my other fic lmk but i think everything is pretty straight forward here??


End file.
